General Motors continues to struggle, considers selling off Hummer to Tata or Mahindra
India’s Economic Times reported that General Motors has approached Indian companies Tata and Mahindra regarding a possible offloading of the Hummer brand to either of the two companies. GM has seen Hummer sales fall as much as 60.2% in the past year, which is really not surprising at all considering the price of fuel and how much of the black gold it takes to get those giant trucks moving.
Mahindra already has its own Indian version of the Hummer called the Mahindra Axe (shown above). Two versions are available, a 4.0 liter petrol version using a GM Vortec engine, or a 2.7 liter turbodiesel powered by a Mercedes-Benz derived Ssangyong engine, similiar to the one in the Rexton.
The diesel version can achieve between 8 to 9km per liter of diesel, while the petrol version achieves between 6 to 7km. The fully independent suspension Axe is currently for defense usage, but a civilian version is expected to arrive next year, and will come with an automatic transmission.
In the big picture, General Motors continues struggling financially. The company lost US$38.7 billion in 2007, which completely overshadows whatever black or red that we’ve ever seen in Proton’s books.
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner has been under pressure from shareholders to cut his own US$15.7 million annual salary in face of the company’s financial struggles and buck up on performance, or “have the Japanese come in and run the whole place”, as suggested by one shareholder John Lauve.
Mary Ann Wiley, a 77 year old GM shareholder for the past 70 years attended her first shareholder meeting this year. Her personal comment to Wagoner: “I came to scold you for your greed. If the company does not do well, management should take an equal hit, and I don’t think they’ve taken an equal hit.”
She also criticized GM for unnecessarily spending money renting the Hotel DuPont’s Gold Ballroom for its annual shareholder meeting, instead of using a factory.
June 9, 2008 @ 2:07 am
hmm seems like the american companies arent doing well..1st ford sold jag and l.rover to tata…now gm is selling hummer…
June 9, 2008 @ 2:33 am
The india’s Hummer version looks like Skeletor from the front.
June 9, 2008 @ 3:22 am
any car with a mahindra name on it is very third world ! thy gotta rebrand it la….
June 9, 2008 @ 8:47 am
Just imagine how much of RM needed to fill up the Hummer’s tank…
June 9, 2008 @ 11:29 am
I WANT ONE…
DONT CARE ABOUT THE PETROL..
BUT IF ITS A MAHINDRA LOGO SELL IT TO THE MYNMAR JUNTA!
REBRAND IT OR SOLD IT AS HUMMER BRAND…
I WILL GO HUNTING WITH MY HUMMER!
TEMBAK A FEW MOUSEDEER AT THE BACK OF MY VILLAGE IN KUALA LANAR..
June 9, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
dr_carz said,
June 9, 2008 @ 11:29 am
I WANT ONE…
DONT CARE ABOUT THE PETROL..
BUT IF ITS A MAHINDRA LOGO SELL IT TO THE MYNMAR JUNTA!
REBRAND IT OR SOLD IT AS HUMMER BRAND…
I WILL GO HUNTING WITH MY HUMMER!
TEMBAK A FEW MOUSEDEER AT THE BACK OF MY VILLAGE IN KUALA LANAR..
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Dude u want a Hummer to shoot mousedeer? Better just buy P1 Arena like that!
By the way if Mahindra is good enough for Burma’s military regime that means its rugged n tough rite? After they might wage a war on us with mahindrafied Hummers and for all u know we’ll lose. Even our Sukhois are not really in operation.
June 9, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
Well, India and China car makers have lots of money on them. Selling the division off is a good way to get back losses.
June 9, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
is this the reason why i saw many Hummers in KL ?
btw, i asked a few for syok-syok lah, the prices are between 480k-580k……
June 10, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Kerismuddin maybe interested!
June 10, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
Nice! i’ll bet most of the malaysian would want one. Then the road bullies would be increase dramaticaly.
however, i’m more interested with the lady GM shareholder. Good scold though!
June 11, 2008 @ 6:38 pm
No room for the Hummer. Fuel guzzler.
June 12, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
Jag and LV was a good move by Tata. Why on earth Mahindra or Tata needs to buy Hummer. They also produced Hummer equivalent vehicle. In fact the army (Ours) is going to get 89 Vamtac 4×4 produced by Spain and will be assembled locally by Master Defence Sdn. Bhd. It is roughly the size of Hummer 1. No doubt Hummer 1 is iconic in appearance but with Hummer 2 and 3 derailed such status. And I think people (even the rich) are starting to find alternative to fuel guzzling vehicles like hummer.Even if you drive Mahindra Axe on the road it will be quite imposing to others. Well dr_carz it’s quite an overkill to hunt mousedeer with hummer. Why not use Land Cruiser BJ60 or commonly found hiluxes.